Full Idea
Make-believe games can make it easier to reason about facts, to systematize them, to visualize them, to spot connections with other facts, and to evaluate potential lines of research.
Gist of Idea
Make-believe can help us to reason about facts and scientific procedures
Source
Stephen Yablo (Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake? [1998], XI)
Book Reference
Yablo,Stephen: 'Things: Philosophical Papers vol. 2' [OUP 2010], p.132
A Reaction
This is the key pragmatic defence of the fictionalist view of abstract objects. Fictions are devices to help us think better. I think a lot of ontology turns out that way.
Related Idea
Idea 10004 Our minds are at their best when reasoning about objects [Hofweber]